Create Live Maps V10 Summary Dashboard

Objective: Show how to create a Summary Dashboard in V10 or greater.

Note: This article was written with the initial release of Live Maps V10.0.

With V10, we opened things up and are now giving you several ways to visualize your data. Some widgets were combined while others really opened up the possibilities. Our PowerShell widget, as an example, at the time of this article has 10 different ways to visualize the data. That includes everything from a console to a heat map, to a pie chart. We added new widgets such as the HTML widget that give you the ability to simply add your own HTML code to the dashboard. This could be as simple as a company logo or something a bit more complex. The HTML widget really is an open book when it comes to that.

To begin, from the home page, use the menu to create a new summary dashboard. Follow HOME > Summary Dashboards, + Create Summary Dashboard

Quick run down on moving around a new Summary dashboard.

Lock/Unlock – Clicking here will enable or disable edit mode. In the image above, it icon is unlocked so the dashboard can currently be edited.

Dashboard Name – All new dashboards will have the name “New Dashboard”. By clicking on the pen, you can change the name of the dashboard. Click on the check mark when done

Blue Plus button – This is how you can add new widgets

Number of Widgets Remaining – Each Summary dashboard has a maximum of 12 widgets. Widgets can take up as much space as you need them to, and go below the normal field of view.

Delete – Allows for you to delete the dashboard. Dashboards are saved in SCOM as objects, this will delete that object.

Notice that there isn’t a “Save” button. That is because while you are editing the dashboard we save it. Add a widget, and it saves when you are finished adding it. This also means if you navigate away from the dashboard while it is still “Unlocked”, all should be well with the world and any changes you make are still saved. That is how it should work, but different SCOM environments may have slightly different results, especially if the database is slow.

Now that the Dashboard is created, feel free to change the name if you so desire. That is recommended, or you may have a bunch of dashboards named “New Dashboard”. Once you are done, click on the Blue Plus button to add a widget.

On the left hand side is the list of widgets, and on the right hand side is a brief description. Select the widget you wish to add then click “Next”.

List of widgets include:

Affected Services – Displays any of the Live Maps Services that contains the selected Object. Can sort either alphabetically or via the Health of the Service. Views are either an Entity State List or Heat Map.

Alert Listing – Listing of individual Alerts. There are several configurations for scoping the widget and they include the class of objects, a certain group, Alert State, and Alert Resolution. Can create a “no results” message if the results of your scoping of the widget return no data.

Alert Summary – Displays a list of objects and the total number of alerts for each object. There are several configurations for scoping the widget. They include the class of objects, a certain group, Alert State, and Alert Resolution. Can create a “no results” message if the results of your scoping of the widget return no data.

Custom Dashboard – Ability to show any dashboard created with the Live Maps Authoring Console in a Summary Dashboard.

Event Summary– Displays a list of objects with the total number of events next to the object. Scoping can be to Class or Group.

Health State – Able to display a list or a bunch of tiles to show the current health state of objects. The objects can be scoped to a class, a group, or a set Health state. Can create a “no results” message if the results of your scoping of the widget return no data.

HTML – In a Nutshell, allows you to have a simple iFrame that you can code to display just about anything. It has a simple WYSIWYG editor or you can code the HTML yourself. Allows for more custom information to be displayed.

Object Properties – Display the property values for a selected object. This can be all the properties or just selected ones.

Performance Graph – Display Performance data in several ways. Line chart used to show a several lines on the same graph for a period of time. Entity State List showing the objects and the last value. Grid will show the data pulled for the performance graphs. Heat map allows you to see the current health state of the objects. Data can be sorted by Largest or Smallest values.

PowerShell– Display the results of a PowerShell script. There are several options for how the results of script can be displayed. Those include, Grid, Single Metric, Bullet Graph, Pie Chart, Entity State List, Heat Map, or even a console. This will allow for customizing how you would like to see SCOM data. The PowerShell widget gives the flexibility to show data not normally in Operations Manager.

Services – Displays the current health state of your Live Maps Services in a List or Heat Map type of view. This can be sorted by Health State or alphabetical. Can show all services or only selected services.

SLA Status – Displays the current SLA Status of the selected Service or Perspective.

SQL – Display the results of a SQL query. There are several options for how the results of script can be displayed. Those include, Grid, Single Metric, Bullet Graph, Pie Chart, Entity State List, or Heat Map. This will allow for customizing how you would like to see SCOM data. The SQL widget gives the flexibility to show data in not normally in Operations Manager.

Webpage – Display the contents of a web page in an iFrame. This can be an internal or External website.

Once you have selected the widget, then click “Next”. From there, most widgets follow the same menu at this point. For SQL there are three basic tabs; General, Views, and Data.There are a few sub-tabs under each. Not every widget has the same tabs, but most have variations of the following.

General Tab

Here is where you can Add a Title for your Widget. Unlike before, the title is not required. If you don’t want a title, that is perfectly fine.

Refresh interval is how often you want the individual widget to refresh itself. Unlike in version 8.x where the whole dashboard refreshed at a set interval, here you can set individual widgets to refresh at a different rate, if needed.

There is an option to add the refresh time on the title bar. Since each widget acts independently from each other or the page itself, it might be nice to know when the data was last refreshed.

No Result Message – This is a customizable message if no result is returned. This allows you to put just about any HTML message you wish. Useful if you put conditions into your widget and you don’t get any conditions back. Example; widget is setup to look for Critical Servers, but all servers are Healthy. In this case you can display a message or image indicating that all is good.

Views Tab

The Views Tab allows you to select which type of visualizations you want to show. Under the options sub-tab, you will be able to change labeling or number of columns in the case of a Heat Map.

Available means that you are making it available for the end user to switch to that visualization on their own. The default will be the visualization that is shown when a users first loads the page, even if they have changed the view on their own.

Data Tab

Each data tab will be different depending on the widget selected. The above is shown from a Health State widget. On the right hand side, is a preview of what is selected based on the selections on the left. Once you are complete with your selection, simply click on “Add”.

Once the widget has been added to the page, it can be resized. The initial size will be two widget spaces wide, and one widget space tall. There are a total of six spaces across and four spaces tall for a full size browser window. Of course widgets can be beyond your field of view, so there are not really any limits on how tall you can make a widget. Just remember it is for a dashboard and it needs to look good.

Just click and drag on the title bar to move the widget. You can click on a boarder to increase or decrease the size of the widget.